Diary of a Power Outage

The recent Halloween storm left many of us in New England without power. Being writers, we recorded the event for posterity.

Day One. Power mysteriously goes out early Sunday morning, the day after the storm. WTF? The storm is over. We thought we were home free. Oh, well, we have a fireplace and some wood left over from last winter. We’ll just build a fire and spend the day relaxing and writing. After all, how long can it last?

Day Two. Took turns staying up all night keeping the fire going. The temperature dropped to 21 degrees overnight. Most of the state is without power. We have plenty of food in the fridge and a little hot water left in the tank. Do a little more writing. Speculate that that the power will probably come on sometime today. We’re not really worried about the dwindling wood supply. After all, how long can a power outage last?

Day Three. Took turns staying up all night keeping the fire going. Hot water gone. Husband goes forth and manages to score the last half-cord of wood from a local supplier. Haul pots of water out to grill to heat water for washing. Husband banned from kitchen while the womenfolk bathe. Starting to feel like Little House on the Prairie around here. But we laugh and joke. After all, how much longer can it last?

Day Four. Another night sitting up with the fire. Kittens have learned the art of hibernation and refuse to come out of their basket next to the fireplace. Had to throw out all the food in our refrigerator. We have bread, peanut butter, Cherrios, raisins, and ice cold tap water. No local grocery stores are open and many roads are still blocked by fallen trees and downed lines. Nevertheless, husband braves the wilderness and finds a deli running on a generator. He brings back warm hamburgers, and we marvel at his hunting skills while wondering, how much longer is this #@$!&! outage going to last?

Day Five. Becoming psychotic from lack of sleep. Fantasize about hunting down executives from the electric company. Wife has gone to happy place and is writing about idyllic lands with never-ending energy supplies and abundant hot water. Husband is writing about blowing things up. The next book is going to be interesting! As daylight fades, we sit staring at each other, unwashed, unshaven and contemplating another night of keeping the bleeping fire going.

And then we hear a distant rumble. We stare at each other, recognition of the sound hitting us both at the same instant. We leap to our feet. “The furnace!” we scream. We hug. We kiss. We dance.

Yes, the furnace is rumbling to life. Power has been restored. We are born again. (But keep an eye out in our next book for electric company-like executives. We have some interesting things planned for them.)

I can relate to this post. We were without power for 6 days! I was sitting in our kitchen and my son was in the living room. We heard the power company trucks driving through our neighborhood and had a glimmer of hope. But, then again we had seen them a few days previous and nothing had happened! This time though the lights in our home suddenly turned back on! I was jumping up and down and dancing around saying yes, yes, yes! My son ran to the front door, threw it open and yelled out in a huge relief Thank You!!!!

Zsho Zsho, all my food went bad Zsho Zsho. Now I have to eat gefilte-fish and zwieback Zsho Zsho. LOL. Hope all is well my friend. Keep us updated on your writings and releases. Good luck. Thanks for the days minutes. I copied and pasted them and will read them off line. Hope all else is well. Go slow Jodi. Sincerely, Machi.